adrift in salt and sugar | Moorea + Tahiti

She said that there was a small craft advisory; the ferry was probably one size over a small craft. The Pacific storm that caught us mid-crossing rolled the slow, cumbersome craft that lumbered through the channel from Moorea to Tahiti. Internally you could hear the creaks on the tie ropes that secured cars in place; buckles straining to contain crates of pineapples and breadfruit returning to the big island. Short, sharp rain lashed the deck of the ferry; the small handful of people on board mostly sheltered inside until the relative stillness of the lagoon that ringed Tahiti. We came back into Port with the realisation that we had just been there; that in the rest of the world time had passed forgotten, through the days dissolving in saltwater, the line between morning and evening blurred by tides and light.

The Windward Islands were satisfyingly delineated; the dark velveteen waters of the wider Pacific broken by rings of reef in their myriad of opaline turquoises; cobalt-flecked waves lulling into the glassy lagoon. Then the rings of beaches; a mix of vanilla-donut soft; meringue-fragile grains like powdered sugar on a pastry; to the coarser beaches of caramelised cane sugar and toasted coconut; candied ginger. The sea, the reef, the lagoon, the beaches, the ring of protectors of the island’s jurassic interior. Describing it as mountainous would be generous, from the tropical beach roads skirting placid lagoons it was as if granite sentinels grew upwards into southern skies. Some jagged, some cutting, some looking like dark grey popsicles frosted by the heavy layer of cloud that eternally lingered. The sun would beat down on the coast, illuminating the blues of the lagoons as opal shifted with every ray of light, while Moorea’s interior silently brooded under clouds the colour of aging bruises; as if the mountains harbored some jealousy of the pagent-winning beaches.

The idea of jealous mountains and flaunty beaches is really not that out of reach, on these ancestral islands. While driving we passed Cook’s Bay and Pau Pau - quiet, glossy, inky bays, watched over by the hilly interior. The water of the bays never paled like a jade amulet in the light; sun rays never danced in a lapis chorus over waves. The waves stayed a fractured crystalline green, indigos pooling like spilled ink. In fact, that was the ancient story - that God resented the division of the people following the arrival of white settlers, so he released octopus ink into the bays as he disappeared into the hills. The signs alongside the bays never shared the ending; but as fleets of yachts came into the inlets to moor in the stillness, grouping in whites and greys like seabirds, like scattered shells, I did wonder what he saw, from his perch in the shadowed ridgelines.

Because it is hard in some ways to pin down memories that drift like sand and salt. Maybe it was the effects of 12 hours of jetlag and 24 hours of travel to an island seemingly clinging onto the end of the world by coral and kelp forests. Perhaps it was the intensely sunburnt skin from beach days, legs going caramel; limbs now darker than some of those souffle sands. The gentle lagoon tides washed tiny coves creating private beaches with nothing but an overhanging palm for company; a dog barked in the distance; the tin roofs of a beach house glinted in the sun; the surface of the water wobbled like a mirror. A wrought iron gate was washed by sea; a palm-frond structure concealed a canoe; a small girl jumps off the rocks into tepid water; so clear the sun reflected into crystals on wet skin. Small, benign, ditsy tropical fish flitted through the shallows; a ray passed by twice in the day, a commuter perhaps; in a rush to catch the ebbing tide home.

It would be only that ray, really, who was in any kind of rush. Despite the hilliness of the roads, the pace of driving in Moorea was a bit like the lagoon - languid, mostly peaceable, with a breaker from time to time. Children rode bikes out of villages and directly into the ocean; families picnicked on baguettes in tiny beachside parks, giant pickups towed boats and jet skis. Pocket-sized kiosks were set up all along the coastline, their thin wooden structures heaving with produce: watermelon, papayas, cosy breadfruit, honeyed pineapple. It was in fact, the Route de Ananas - the pineapple road - that bravely bisected the jagged interior and headed straight to Belvedere lookout. It rained hard during that drive; every sense evoking the familiarity of the true tropics in heavy rain - the red runoff into concrete gutters; mud splashed onto ankles from flip flops; the rich, warm smell of the earth. In the foothills were emerald-drenched pastures, streaked with flashes of yellow from banana trees. From nowhere, a clearing, a herd of rainforest horses. They appeared in shades of the tropics themselves - cinnamon bark, tamarind, toasted cacao flanks glistening against the wet grass.

But the mix of salt and rainwater is heady; the magic has always been where the forest meets the sea. It is the fertile silt that feeds the ocean, so that acres of turquoise glass, indigo wash, and lapis shimmer become an unwitting playground for giants. If the hold on the memories was thin, the sun burns peeling, the sound of the whales seems yet to have faded. A lolling vibration that fills your body, the song of the universe, floating through sunburnt skin and into your heart. The humpbacks sung as they played in kelp; a mother; her juvenile calf and an unrelated male, seeking company after the long journey from the frigid Antarctic. They too rolled and revelled in the clear tropical waters, relief from their long journey, flippers and marshmallow-white bellies to the sun. A duo of dolphins surfed the waves; a turtle rode the swell; we were far out of the calm of the channel, in the true blue ocean, an unfathomable sapphire expanse .

Silent and unseen, a trio of black tip sharks investigate the boat, graceful and benign, curious about the newcomers in their liquid realm. A visit from a Pacific white tip shark catches the attention of our captain; hanging onto the awning; his back and chest covered with Polynesian tattoos, the tooth of a shark through his pierced ear. The Polynesians do little to hide their love and respect for the ocean and land that surrounds them; nor should they. From the coconut-cream tides lapping the pineapple custard beaches of the lagoons; the way the fractured light moved over the crystal clarity of the prismic reef, the way the ocean’s bounty kissed the feet of the verdant jungle, they are the protectors of a gift. A gift that seems less a place than a dream, dissolving even as you try to hold it, but lingering in the body like salt on the skin.

Small craft advisory or not, we did return to Papeete, acting as if we were shocked that there would be more than one heavily improvised, retrofitted Dodge Ram on the road. We stayed outside of the city, in a small cluster of three palm-frond cabanas, down an unpaved road frequented by quietly chatting chickens, a gossip of mumbling mynahs and a small, shy dog. Before our last beach day we took a hike through the neighbourhood, steadily climbing under southern sun, the sun that ripens copper-blushed papayas on verdant trees; leaves mangos scattered on tin roofs and leaves hibiscus blooming like in a symphony of sunset orange, flamingo pink, buttercream yellow. With the Pacific glinting behind us, I construct my wedding bouquet, again dowsed in a dream, continuing to drift between what I will hold onto and what I will soon struggle to place. A waterfall ribbons steeply out of the jungle, dense like syrup, our footfalls scare small tropical birds up into a sugar-blue sky.

That last beach day took us to the local favourite Plage de Vaiava, a relative rarity for Polynesian beaches in that it was the archetype of a tropical beach. Long and curved, sand slightly lighter in colour than a caramel flan; perhaps more lychee cream; and lined by coconut palms heavy with fruit. It is a popular beach, its early stretch ripe for people watching - small children from one of the local garderies playing in the shade of palms; Polynesian teenagers composing photos; a couple canoodle on a surfboard. We walked further along to what felt like another castaway beach, crystal waters lapping fallen coconuts; the fruit perhaps from a grove of palms that provided relief from unrelenting sun. In the grove it was cool, tiny hermit crabs frolicked in the roots, tangles of hibiscus and vanilla vines grew over iron fences.

We swam again in that magical water, yet to become less unreal, yet to feel less dreamlike. Perhaps it was the effects of sun, but the reality never really returned at night, in Tahiti or in Moorea. In Moorea, a family of dogs inspect a garden left to grow into another jungle tangle; mynahs sing their dusk song from the rooftop; cicadas chorus from around the pool. The sunset in Tahiti did little to ground us in reality since the ember reds, oranges and sorbet peaches and purples seem to have come out of the heat of a dream. We were just darkened shadows against a tropical sky in flux, moving over Tahiti, to kiss Moorea’s mountains; to mix with mountain rain, to flow back towards the beaches, so in some way, the sky returns to the water.

On our last day at the beach I lay in the sun, to dry off after chasing tiny fishes following drifting coconuts. The heat of the sand seeping through my towel, the dazzle of the sun leaving me lost and unmoored. I floated, out and over the banana pudding beaches; the vanilla-cream waves, the lagoon; surely made from crystal. Up and over the sentinel mountains and the pistachio-green jungle, sugared at the edges with mist. Floated over the deep blue, where sharks and rays drifted; just quiet spirits, where whales sang their heart song in their honeyed expanse. I ate purple taro ice cream from the little shop where every morning a large, smiling Polynesian man delivered fresh pastries; I stepped on a mango getting out of the car, I rode in the car in just my bikini, salty skinned and sweetened by the day. The days did not quite end; they melted, like sugar into frosting. Into tide, into heat, into tanned skin. Memory itself softened, fluid as the sea, sweet as the fruit of the tropics, dissolving between dream and daylight. And maybe that is the way of islands: to keep you adrift, half-dissolved in salt and sugar, belonging to no place except the dream itself.

“You're in the wind, I'm in the water
Nobody's son, nobody's daughter”
Lana del Rey, Chemtrails over the Country Club

ps. happy anniversary Prune girl <3 thank you for sending the whales to us

the vanilla tides | Mauritius

It’s funny how, when you look back, there are some things that just feel like they never happened. A level of surrealism just clouds certain memories, hazy, the way steam rises from tarmac during sunshine after heavy rain. The time we had with Pruney is coated in that same kind of fog, was she ever with us, or just a figment of a dream? It seems unlikely we were ever lucky enough to share in her spirit, her character, her big hazel eyes… was she ever real? It’s just hard to believe that she was ours, and she was real. In many ways Pruney, her loss and her being, wove inextricably into how I remember Mauritius. Those arching beaches, in shades of flax, wheat, and bone; the calm sea, clear and glassy, burbling like a baby, somehow still guarding the secrets of pods of dolphins and coral rocks. Mauritius too, was surreal, perhaps another piece of a dream, some kind of postcard for a paradise island. The French flair, the English architecture, the passion of the people for the ocean; for fishing; for raggaeton music, which made it feel decidedly island-y, and even more unreal.

There were the luxurious jungles that stuck to the sides of steep rock like verdant tattoos, trees dangerously careening too heavily around bends that hid ghostly shrines, surreptitiously guarded from the view of passing tourists. The hills and forest echoed with the calls of a thousand birds, there were views over leafy hilltops and cane plantations surrounded colonial mansions still producing rum. The road through the hills linked back to a coast road that wove lazily through fishing villages, boats calmly bobbing at the dock, fishermen and small children with corkscrew curls mending the nets. On another side of the island and under the watchful gaze of the peaks of Le Morne we found a tiny beach with water clearer than clingfilm. The shadow of every tiny ripple was visible from the surface, the sun bathed us and everything in white light, while the vanilla tides kissed sands the color of toasted coconut. Palms swayed to delineate hotels from each other, quiet despite peak season, pools gurgled, left untouched, and we drove back to our villa barefoot and with a horizon filled with nothing but the blue of the Indian Ocean.

The sea was often tiger striped, but in blues, greens and azures. A breeze would pick up in the afternoon, there would be a pleasant scent of seaweed, dogs in the small neighborhoods of Blue Bay and Point d’Esny barked, revived by the growing shade. Inland the malls were busy, Port Louis bustled, and the botanical gardens at Pamplemousses burst into a bloom of greenery with giant leaves and tropical tree trunks. You could drive for miles over tiny copper-toned roads, the carmine red earth a reminder of the richness of Africa; the canes stretching infinitely around us, hiding orchestras of singing cicadas as a reminder of Africa’s wildness. Banana plantations snuggled in the arms of rolling hills that ran gently to the sea, the wash frothing like a latte back onto the pristine shoreline.

In the evening we would walk in the neighbourhood, where beautifully unkempt villas were slowly retaken by island flowers; bougainvillea and hibiscus; friendly semi-stray dogs lazed in the long grass, pigeons cooed from crumbling rafters. Local families walked their way up from the beach, the sun began to set, streaking dusky skies into canvasses of pale orange, peach, and lilac. The island was warm, it was slow, and the dreamlike beauty of the Indian Ocean hypnotic. There were moments when we felt like we were frozen in time, sunburnt and sea-salty. We were watching kite surfers hop the waves, colourful sails cutting through the water like jellybeans through a glass jar; we were playing with dolphins who raced our boat and brought tiny babies alongside.

Sometimes, in the tangles of my head, I still don’t know if my memories with Prune are real, or if I’m imagining. Mauritius seems far away too. But then there are moments of clarity, when I can remember what the morning sun felt like as it moved over the ocean and lingered over the jungly mansions of Point d’Esny’s coastal road. When we were at that hauntingly beautiful beach, with the perfect clouds, the glasslike ripples, the tendrils of golden sun, we wrote Prune’s name in the sand. She was with us, she had been the whole time, and she would see the message on that tiny beach, because she would always be there, watching over the ocean, entangled in the coral and the palms, chasing the dolphins, always.

“The island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever.” - E. Lockhart

drowning in a fragrant sea | Upper Normandy

For us it had so far been a typically humid lakeside early summer. Maybe there is supposed to be some kind of romance in the dense stagnant air; crowds magnetically drawn to the lake; the quiet of the night overridden by the whirring of fans, the countryside bursting at the seams with caravans and families on bicycles. Whatever there was, it was gone, like the birds who nest in the quiet marshes over the winter. Summer just set in too hard and too fast. It’s always the times when you don’t expect much that you find a part of you are looking for, even if you’re not exactly sure what that is, kind of like what people say about love. Nobody would have expected that you could drive four hours south and that the air would clear. In Normandy, mornings were so cool that crystalline layers of dew settled over the wheat fields, some fields still green with youth, some a warm flaxen gold and waiting for the first harvest. The sun would rise gentle and mellow, tinting the countryside with peach and bubblegum pink as dew dripped off the flowers clinging to farmhouse walls. We were close enough to the Landing Beaches that we could feel a coastal breeze wafting over pastures, tiny birds resting on the winds, towering benign cumulus clouds flitting across baby blue skies. Roads were so small that wheat seeds came through open windows and we were almost swallowed by meadows where cows grazed on shaded slopes. The delicate network of roads wound through flourishing villages drowning in a fragrant sea of flowers and timbered farmhouses. We parked at a crossroads and walked through fields basking in the gentle sun. Suzi sniffed between maturing stalks of corn and young pockets of blooming wildflowers, rambling, wandering. Baby cows met us by rusting iron fences, noses wet from dew as they nibbled our clothes, clearly curious of the early visitors. Red, blue, yellow, tractors hauled the first of the hay, sending stalks flying like confetti, a celebration of us being, for once, in the right place at the right time.

Mild rain showers cooled the evenings even more, fat drops pooling under the thatched roof. The evening air was suddenly encumbered by scents of freshly cut grass, the earth breathing through the rain, a marriage to the sweet sticky smell of molasses in the feed of the dairy cows next door. It was both floaty and lulling, lingering light in the sky tracing the clouds through the shadows. From the newly damp earth we tracked in shards of freshly cut grass, they stuck to the soles of our shoes and trailed lines of emerald into the house. Some days the afternoons were so mild you could nap in the sun, all dreams of poppies and molasses, and wake up sun-burnt. But even on the hotter days, it was the kind of southern dry heat that feels like a golden reward and not like a burden. The sky ran through a gambit of Pantone blues, washed like denim, and hay bales puffed like popcorn in the lee of chateaux.

Maybe the heat would build, and the landscape would turn deep yellow and burnt khaki. Maybe it wouldn’t. We left Normandy with mornings that were still cool and foggy, sunlight illuminating cobwebs, birds floating on brisk breezes carrying the seeds of dandelions like whispers. It would be how we would remember those early days of French summer - the baby cows and their molasses, Suzi and her fields of young corn, the forests’ eternal romance with birdsong. And the sun, endlessly flirting with the June clouds, her lover.